Embodiments of the invention relate to real-time search of vertically partitioned, inverted indexes.
The users of documents in a repository often annotate one or more documents or parts of a document using annotations (also referred to as markers). Also, users who search for information in documents, either on the World Wide Web (i.e., WWW or web) or in content repositories, sometimes annotate documents. These user annotations are potentially useful to their creators at a later time or are useful to other users immediately.
These annotations may be notes, comments, tags, instructions to other team members, etc., and are auxiliary content that is distinct from the content of the document. An annotation may be as short as a one-word tag or as long as a multi-paragraph remark. Annotations attached to a document may contain helpful notes for the user the next time they refer to the document or contain information or instructions to communicate to other users. Annotations also make it easier to find the document in the repository. As the use of annotations increases, some annotations become more popular than others.
As annotations are used more, they are also more useful for searching.